Finer Than the Silk of the Floss
by Allekha
Summary: Hungary beats up Prussia. Afterward, she's a mess, and Austria helps clean her up. (HunAus, vaguely historical.)


A/N: Written for Mikant for Chocolate Box 2016.

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Anybody sensible would have braided their hair, or at least stopped for five seconds to tie it back, but not Hungary. In rushing to Austria's defense, she apparently hadn't bothered with such trivialities. Never mind the way that it had ridden up in her eyes. Never mind how it had attempted to strangle her at one point, and gotten caught on one of Prussia's fancy buttons. Never mind how it had given Prussia an easy grip to try and pull her off of him.

And now Prussia was chased off and Hungary stood in front of Austria, an uneven grin to her face, her torso heaving with breath. While Austria could appreciate the artful smear of blood on her cheek, it was impossible to overlook her filthy hair, now matted through with dirt and drying blood. (The less said about her dress, the better – but Austria had never particularly liked that one on her, and it had served its purpose without holding her back. The way she had choked Prussia with her apron was impressive.)

Now that her enemy was gone, Hungary seemed to be calming down. She shook her head and looked at him properly, put on a real smile. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Not at all." Hungary, on the other hand – she had an eye that was blackening, bleeding scratches on her arm from where Prussia had dug his nails in, and who knew what else. And her _hair_.

Later – when Hungary's dress had been tossed aside to be turned into rags later, when her wounds had been cleaned and a hot bath drawn – Austria was left to examine her torn nails and bruised knees and set to work on her hair. He started at the very bottom, with the locks that were visibly twisted up together. He pulled on them delicately, making sure not to tug down, until either the wavy strands slid past each other, or until they were revealed to be a true knot. For the latter, he kept a pair of fine, sharp scissors beside the bath to cut the knots with.

In the past, he had tried to undo every knot, but some just couldn't be fixed. Even if he could tease the strands free of themselves, they were left with sharp kinks intruding on the gentle waves, damage that had to be cut anyway.

He worked out as many of the tangles as he could with her hair still dry, but the dirt and blood eventually halted his progress as he worked his way up. "Here, let me," Hungary said, and dipped under the water. When she came back up, he pulled her hair back out of the tub and let it drip. Now its pretty golden-brown color had darkened nearly to black.

Austria worked it through with castille soap until the dirt slid off and the matted blood came apart. He left the strands slick while he finished detangling the length of Hungary's hair, then rubbed more soap into her scalp to see her sigh with pleasure and lean back in the tub. "Maybe I should beat Prussia up more often," she said, smiling at him upside-down.

"I wholeheartedly approve." He encouraged her to sit up properly again so he could rinse her hair, one hand cupped over her eyes to keep the soap from running into them. It took more water than usual, but finally her hair was once again clean, and he swept his fingers through it a few more times to check for tangles. There. When she dried off, she would once again be the radiant image of his wife.

He wrapped a towel around her as she rose – slightly stiffly – from the water, which was now dark with all the filth that had been washed off of her. Hungary stood still as he wrapped another towel around her hair, squeezing tightly to get some of the water out but making sure not to pull on it. When he was finished, she plucked it from his fingers and turned, draping the towel over her head like a covering scarf, and hiding all the hair he'd so painstakingly worked on. "Well?" she asked, teasing, and when he didn't hide his frown, she laughed and let the towel slip to the floor.

If he were to follow his more romantic motions, he might have swept her off her feet and carried her off. A more practical side of him realized that this was likely to end in disaster, especially given the slick wet floor. While this hadn't stopped one of them from carrying the other around before (accidents included the hitting of heads on the sides of door frames, twisted ankles, and the memorable time Hungary had tripped on the stairs), for tonight he simply wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

Hungary smiled up at him, looking a bit sleepy. "Come on," she said, raising her hand to cover his. "Let's go get dressed properly, and then we can figure out where that bastard's run off to." Her hand on his tightened to an almost painful degree as her smile brightened.

As they dressed (Hungary into something a bit more practical for fighting, this time, while Austria merely needed something more clean and less wrinkled), he decided that he would buy her a new day dress when this matter was done with. Green to match her eyes, with red for contrast, and on a white background that would be suitable for summer. Yes, something like that would suit her perfectly.


End file.
